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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
81
Il Divo
54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
57
Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
xx
Offshore
78
O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Fantastic Four
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
FILM:
GAMES:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sequences of intense action, and some suggestive content
Starring
Ioan Gruffudd,
Michael Chiklis,
Jessica Alba,
Chris Evans,
Julian McMahon,
Kerry Washington,
Stan Lee,
and
Maria Menounos
Marvel's first family of comic superheroes takes the world by storm as the longest running comic book series in history comes to the big screen. (20th Century Fox)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Adventure
|
Fantasy
|
Sci-fi
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Michael France
Mark Frost
Jack Kirby (comic book & characters)
Stan Lee (comic book & characters)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Tim Story
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 6, 2005
Video: December 6, 2005
Theatrical: July 8, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
105 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / Germany |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's done with an agreeable confidence and flair, the actors all fit comfortably in their roles and the effects are fun.
75
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Blessedly unimportant, Fantastic Four cruises along on modest yet genuine comic-book pleasures.
70
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
A funky, fun film version of the famous Marvel superhero concoction, one of the earliest of the revisionist wave of supes and in some ways the most lovable or at least the most knowable.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
In a summer of low movie expectations and worse results, Fantastic Four is a not-so-bad mindless bit of camp escapism that doesn't try to eclipse its dime-store comic book roots.
63
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Frustrating because it doesn't seem far removed from a wholly enjoyable motion picture, but the tempo's off, beats are missed, and the production ends up sounding out-of-tune.
63
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
I don't think it will seriously disappoint longtime fans, but it made me itchy as I watched it unfold in ways that the comics never did when I read them in the '60s.
60
Chicago Reader
Staff (Not credited)
Michael Chiklis (of the cop show "The Shield") steals the movie as the agonized Thing.
50
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Crust
Fails to be anything more than a mild summertime diversion. Based on the Marvel comic book, it's a prototypical air conditioner movie.
50
USA Today
Claudia Puig
There's nothing terribly fantastic about this ho-hum futuristic foray.
50
Variety
Joe Leydon
A wildly uneven, sporadically slapdash action-adventure that amuses in fits and starts.
50
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
This "Four" ain't so "Fantastic."
50
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
This clumsy, cheesy, chintzy adaptation, with its F/X that look dated the moment you see them, is like something left over from the '60s.
50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Even if you can get past the acting -- and in the case of the beautiful, blank Alba, that's asking a lot -- the film just sits there, not exactly torturous, but never very exciting, either.
50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
It's fun to watch superheroes who aren't quite at ease with their abilities, but "The Incredibles" - last year's similarly themed animated film - is livelier and funnier.
50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
A garish mediocrity.
50
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
It's a waste of classic material. Rent "The Incredibles" and see what should have been.
50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Fantastic Four doesn't expand on, or even illuminate, anything much beyond the most basic theme of what it feels like to be an adolescent misfit. This is a comic-book movie that actually makes an effort not to go over kids' heads.
40
Empire
Olly Richards
Fleetingly enjoyable in very short bursts, this is the most cynically constructed event movie in recent memory, its heart purely in its wallet. A fantastic bore.
40
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
Compared with the psychological probing and spiritual brooding of "Batman Begins," Fantastic Four is proudly dumb, loud and inconsequential.
40
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
A comic-book movie unashamed of its roots, meaning it's unabashed about being silly, overwrought nonsense, which works to its benefit--so much so that you're almost rooting for it by the end.
40
TV Guide
Angel Cohn
Favors light action over character dynamics.
40
The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Rechtshaffen
A colossal snore.
40
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
The release of Fantastic Four marks the beginning of the end for movies based on Marvel Comics' upper tier of characters.
40
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
After this mediocrity, no one's even going to remember Roger Corman's godawful bargain-basement 1994 version. Which, on second thought, had a lot more heart that this one.
38
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
It needed a star like Clooney at its center, and a character actor like Alan Rickman as Dr. Doom. You don't expect realism from a comic-book movie, but you do want the characters to seem larger than life.
38
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
There's nothing remotely fantastic about this Fantastic Four.
30
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
Directing seems an unduly elegant term for what Hollywood hack du jour Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi) does here -- the action scenes are so choppily constructed that their excitement disappears faster than the Invisible Woman.
30
Village Voice
Matt Singer
The action sequences reek of drudgery rather than adventure, and with the exception of Chiklis's remarkably soulful performance beneath 60 pounds of orange Thing makeup, all of the characters are flatter than their two-dimensional counterparts.
30
Slate
David Edelstein
An overinflated B-movie with no grace, no subtext, no wit, and featuring beefcake/cheesecake actors who look like they've been plucked from the soaps.
30
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The result is a movie groping for a comic tone while its FX machinery spews vast clouds of visual gibberish.
25
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
What the movie lacks most is a real sense of adventure.
25
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
They take on special powers that the filmmakers are incapable of making interesting, partly because the characters are ciphers, and partly because the story is listless and uninventive.
25
Premiere
Aaron Hillis
From less a purist's standpoint than a seeker of serviceable junk food, this comprehensive waste of time is too bouncy to be an "Elektra" bummer, but should make Marvel mascot Stan Lee think twice about burning another lucrative bridge with unintentional hilarity.
25
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A perfect storm of wooden acting, hackneyed direction, inane scripting and laughably cartoonish special effects produces a shapeless mess more wearyingly stupid than arch-villian Dr. Doom is evil.
25
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The really good superhero movies, like "Superman," "SpiderMan 2" and "Batman Begins," leave Fantastic Four so far behind that the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in the same theaters.
 The average user rating for this movie is 5.6 (out of 10) based on 164 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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